Simultaneously with the construction of these ten battleships, six armoured cruisers, ranging in displacement from 8,800 to about 11,000 tons, were laid down, and in 1906 a single clause amending the Act was passed increasing the foreign fleet by five armoured cruisers and the fleet reserve by one armoured cruiser, thus fulfilling in part the original programme of the Navy Department with which the Reichstag had interfered.
At about the same date German naval opinion made a complete volte face in regard to the fighting value of the submarine. About the time when the Act of 1900 was passed the British Admiralty, after a careful study of the progress of submarine navigation in France and America, decided that it could no longer ignore this type of man-of-war. It was forthwith decided to buy an experimental ship from the Holland Company of the United States, which had already demonstrated the practical value of this particular type of submersible torpedo-boat. The original craft which was purchased under these circumstances was a little ship with a submerged displacement of only 120 tons, and a water-line displacement of 104 tons. She was propelled on the surface by a four-cylinder gasoline engine giving a speed of eight to eight and a half knots, while below the surface she was driven by an electric motor, and was capable of only six or seven knots.
The entrance of this little ship into the British service was hailed in Germany with something approaching derision, and in the technical papers the futility of the submarine was urged with a wealth of argument. The little Holland boat, however, was merely the foundation from which the British authorities proceeded to develop a type of craft in keeping with the offensive rôle of the British Navy, and in 1906 submarines were being built for the British Fleet mounting two torpedo tubes on a displacement of about 300 tons, and possessing a surface speed of fourteen knots in combination with a submerged speed of ten knots. When it is added that these craft possessed a full speed radius of about 3,000 miles on the surface and were estimated to be able to travel 150 miles under water, it is not surprising that German naval opinion as to the advantages of the submarine underwent a sudden and dramatic change. Henceforth the submarine was to be treated by German naval officers with respect. Without the formality of any public announcement, either in the Reichstag or in the Press, an under-water boat was laid down at the Germania Yard at Kiel in 1906, and thenceforward an energetic policy of construction was pursued, although it was not until two years later that legislative provision was made for the building of this type of warship.
A very remarkable feature of German policy has been the persistency with which cruisers have been built even at a time when other naval Powers, including Great Britain, were inactive. As a matter of course, during the period when the German Government was content to provide a fleet mainly for the purposes of coast defence, great importance was attached to the efficiency and adequacy of the cruiser squadrons. At the time of the passage of the Navy Act of 1900, for instance, there were eighteen cruisers completed and nearly a dozen others in hand. Under the Act of that year provision was made to continue this policy while attaining a higher standard of battle strength.[11] Even when, in 1908, legislative effect was given to the ambition of the Marine Office further to expedite battleship construction, in spite of the heavy cost involved by the transition from mixed armament ships to the all-big-gun ships of the Dreadnought era, the Reichstag was asked to stereotype the cruiser programme. The Act made provision for two light cruisers to be laid down annually, and in the measure passed in 1912 an addition of two "small cruisers" was made for the period 1912-1917. A notable contrast is provided by a study of Germany's action and the policy of the British Admiralty charged with the protection of a vast oversea trade and half the shipping of the world. During the later years of the last century and the first four years of the present century a persistent policy of construction was pursued both in armoured and protected cruisers, and then for several years there was a complete cessation of this form of shipbuilding activity. Other countries, Germany only excepted, either acting on their own initiative or accepting the lead of the British authorities also desisted from cruiser construction. The advance in the size and cost of large armoured ships threw heavy burdens upon the respective Exchequers, and no doubt the saving effected was a welcome relief at a moment when under every flag naval expenditure was advancing at an unparalleled rate. The result of the persistent policy adopted by Germany became apparent in 1911, when in modern swift cruisers suitable for scouting the two fleets were practically upon an equality. It was in these circumstances, faced by evidence of German progress in cruiser construction, that the British authorities again decided to embark upon the building of new squadrons of cruisers of small size and high speed—in fact, of considerably smaller size than the ships then in hand in Germany.
But in battleship construction German policy has necessarily been less continuous and consistent. The war between Russia and Japan in the Far East, and the lessons which it taught to the naval world were destined to upset completely the theories upon which battleship and larger cruiser design in Germany had been based in the early years of the present century. The German naval authorities had persisted in attaching primary importance to the secondary gun, still believing in the moral and material effect of a storm of projectiles from numerous quick-firing guns. They were still proceeding with the construction of ships—battleships and large cruisers—embodying these ideas when a new Board of Admiralty in London, with Admiral Sir John—now Lord—Fisher as First Sea Lord, appointed a Committee to reconsider the design of British ships in the light of the information which the gunnery tests of the fleet and the struggle in the Far East had supplied.
Thanks to the British alliance with the Japanese, British officers, and British officers only, had been permitted to be present with the Japanese Fleet during the decisive battles of the war. With the advantage of the information thus obtained the designs of British ships were reconsidered. The report of this Committee was treated as confidential. In presenting the Navy Estimates for 1905 to the House of Commons, the Earl of Selborne, the First Lord, contented himself with making the following statement as to the work of this body, and of the new programme of construction:
"I may claim that the work of the Committee will enable the Board to ensure to the Navy the immediate benefit of the experience which is to be derived from the naval warfare between Russia and Japan, and of the resultant studies of the Naval Intelligence Department. I can however hold out no hope that it will be consistent with the interests of the public service to publish either the reference to the Committee or its report.
"It is proposed to begin during the financial year 1905-06: 1 battleship, 4 armoured cruisers, 5 ocean-going destroyers, 1 ocean-going destroyer of the experimental type, 12 coastal destroyers, 11 submarines.[12]
"His Majesty has approved that the battleship should be called the Dreadnought, and the first of the armoured cruisers the Invincible."
It was not until many months later that it gradually became known that the British Admiralty were embarking upon the construction of an entirely new type of battleship, and it was even later that information was available as to the character of the "armoured cruisers" mentioned in the First Lord's statement. In the following spring a partial revelation of the change in British design was made in the Naval Annual:
"The Dreadnought, officially laid down at Portsmouth on October 2nd, 1905, though some material had already been built into her, was launched by His Majesty on February 10th, 1906. The Admiralty announce that the period of building for armoured vessels is to be reduced to two years, but the Dreadnought is to be completed in February, 1907. The rapidity of her construction will therefore out-rival that of the Majestic and Magnificent, which were completed within two years from the date of the laying of their first keel plates.
"The Dreadnought represents a remarkable development in naval construction, which has been for some time foreshadowed, notably by Captain Cuniberti, the famous Italian naval constructor. The Russo-Japanese War, more particularly the Battle of Tsushima, established the fact that naval engagements can, and will, be fought at greater distances than were formerly considered possible. Hence the medium armament is held by many authorities to lose much of its value."